Nate Silver

October 01, 2008

In opposition to the House, where essentially every representative in a
swing district voted against the bailout bill (the exceptions were
mostly in wealthy, investor-class districts), many senators in tough
races were willing put their backing behind the measure.Among those senators in races that might even vaguely be considered competitive (all the races on Swing State Project's
list, including their snowball's-chance-in-hell category called "races
to watch"), the only to oppose the measure were four Southern fiscal
conservatives -- Liddy Dole, Roger Wicker, James Inhofe, and Democrat
Mary L

October 01, 2008

Like Andrew Sullivan,
I think that the Obama campaign has little to lose and everything to
gain by encouraging the CPD to have Gwen Ifill to pull out of
moderating the VP debate.It's not that the right's critique
isn't utterly transparent, but media backlash was one of the principal
dynamics in motivating the Palin bounce in the first place.But there's another factor here too.
In preparing for a debate, you are often preparing nearly as much for
the "judge" or moderator as for the opponent.

October 01, 2008

Gonna try and make it to the Cubs game tonight, which means that I've
got a ton of work to do this afternoon, which means that ... you're
getting a rare AM edition of Today's Polls. And it's a good one for
Barack Obama:What's up with those Quinnipiac polls? Why have I listed them twice?Well,
Quinnipiac broke its sample into two halves: pre-debate and
post-debate. For all intents and purposes, these are two separate
surveys, and so that's how I list them.

September 30, 2008

It is difficult to gauge the immediate reaction to yesterday's
financial meltdown in the polling, particularly as several other
aspects of the campaign, such as last Friday's debate, are also still
echoing onto the numbers.

September 29, 2008

It is a politician’s rite of passage--at least if he expects to win Florida. Each summer, the presidential candidates take turns speaking to the Council of Jewish Elders (really just a sufficiently telegenic synagogue, preferably in a swing district like Tampa), competing with each other to see just who can claim to love Israel the mostest. The media covers the events with great ardor, usually suggesting that Jewish voters are the key to the entire state--and perhaps the entire election.

September 29, 2008

When
the Democrat is polling even with the Republican in states like North
Carolina, and polling 7-8 points ahead of them in a state like
Pennsylvania, that means the Republican is in a lot of trouble. While
there are isolated results in this batch of polling that seem decent
for John McCain -- he may have closed the gap in Colorado
a bit -- several of these polls have Obama at or near the highest
numbers he's been at all year.

September 28, 2008

Here's the long and short of it for John McCain: Barack Obama has as
large a lead in the election as he's held all year. But there is much
less time left on the clock than there was during other Obama periods
of strength, such as in February, mid-June or immediately following the
Democratic convention. This is a very difficult combination of
circumstances for him.On the strength of a set of national tracking polls
that each show Obama at or near his high-water mark all year, our model
projects that he would win an election hold today by 4.2 points.

September 27, 2008

Barack Obama had another strong day in the national tracking polls, increasing his advantage in the Rasmussen Tracker to +6, and in the Gallup Tracker
to +5. Indeed, four of the five tracking polls are now in agreement
that Barack Obama's lead is in the 5-6 point range, with Battleground
dissenting and putting the race at McCain +2.You should bear in
mind, however, that these polls reflect the pre-debate state of the
race, as the overwhelming majority of the interviews for the these
tracking polls took place before last night's debate was completed.

September 27, 2008

TPM
has the internals of the CNN poll of debate-watchers, which had Obama
winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is
opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.Specifically,
by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with
the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no
doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also
grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters.